I just found out last week that there’s a documentary out of Bob Dylan’s performances at the Newport Folk Festival in 1963, 1964 and 1965. It’s called The Other Side of the Mirror: Bob Dylan Live at the Newport Folk Festival, 1963-1965. These are just amazing performances and I’ve seen bits and pieces of them in other documentaries. But for the hardcore Dylanophiles this is a critical three years because he shows up at the festival in 1963 as some sort of half reincarnation of Woody Guthrie and then in 1965 he comes with what was basically an electric blues backing band and gets everybody totally freaked out and upset.

In any case, I was going to order it when I got home tonight because it’s only available on DVD, not in any digital format that I’m aware of. But here I was cleaning off my desk at work — which is a fairly major enterprise — and what the hell, here it is. Like the whole thing. And I don’t know where it came from. Read More

Yes, the White House just sent out a email/press release with the subject line: “Obama Administration Celebrates Black History by Winning the Future.”

At her first townhall meeting as a member of Congress, Rep. Ann Buerkle (R-NY) learns that, yes, taxpayers really do pay for her federally subsidized health insurance as a government employee.

The Idaho legislature is debating a bill that would “nullify” the federal health care reform law. Says the bill’s sponsor: “The question becomes, is the Legislature going to become a rubber stamp of everything that the government decides to do, or is the Legislature going to be able to interpose between onerous laws that the federal government decides to implement and its citizens? That’s the question before us.”

Needless to say, state legislatures don’t get a say at all at invalidating federal laws, though some governors in the South about 50 years ago weren’t quite clear on that point.

Late Update: Always the trendsetter in the Crazy, Arizona is one upping Idaho by debating a law that would allow the state legislature to nullify any federal law at will.

Georgia public schools are considering getting out of the textbook business all together and entering into an exclusive arrangement with Apple to have every kid in state schools set up with an iPad instead.

The tech geek in me loves it. And as a user of an iPad I think the mobile/tablet is a pretty revolutionary development that could be applied in amazing ways in education. But I have a little trepidation about any one company getting too many tentacles into state education systems.

Worth noting that Apple has long been, if not dominant, then a disproportionately large player in school computing. So my point isn’t to be alarmist. And I’m basically a full-fledged member of the Apple/Mac cult. But it seems worth some careful consideration.

Sarah Palin has filed paperwork with the US Patent and Trademark Office and trademark her name “Sarah Palin®”

Did you know that Egypt has the 16th largest population in the world? I knew Egypt had a very large population. And at least recently I knew it had a population of around 80 million. But 16th largest sort of blew my mind.

Here’s the list of the top 15 countries above Egypt … Read More

It looks like President Obama’s choice for Ambassador to Luxembourg, Cynthia Stroum, didn’t turn out to be such a hot idea.

Last week we reported how a series of seemingly sensible foreign policy types (Tony Zinni, Bill Richardson, Jim Jones, Bob Torricelli et al.) went to a pro-MEK convention and spoke in support of the Iranian MEK — a cult-like anti-regime paramilitary group that has now apparently given up its arms and the US currently defines as a terrorist organization. We caught up with Torricelli and asked him what he was thinking.

Mubarak tells Amanpour: “I was very unhappy about yesterday. I do not want to see Egyptians fighting each other.”